No Ordinary Fate

Chapter 3

That Thursday morning she woke up at 6:15, a full fifteen minutes before her alarm was set to go off, and couldn't fall back to sleep in anticipation of seeing him again. She decided to get out of bed and look a little nicer than she typically would. She had the time, so she straightened her honey brown hair until it was shinier and smooth, and put concealer beneath her eyes so she didn't look as tired. The dark circles that stayed most days there because of allergies had been worse the past week and Emory wondered if she might need to up her allergy prescription. She added a little mascara and brown eyeshadow to each eye to make her golden brown eyes show brighter from freckled face. She smoothed the off-white sweater she had paired with a skirt and tights before sliding a braided headband back to keep her hair from falling too much into her face when she took notes.

Because of her excitement she managed to still be ready a full ten minutes before she needed to leave her dorm for her 7:20 class but she had nothing left to do so she grabbed her books and headed out the door.

When she walked to the class she hesitated to pull the lecture hall door open, not wanting to sit in the large room all by herself, but she felt a pull to go in, a desire to be seated as though that would make time, and Theo's arrival speed up.

Emory pulled open the door and much to her surprise, Theo was seated in the middle of the room, his unique eyes meeting hers as she entered. He immediately smiled wide at the sight of her and she quickly walked up to sit next to him. She could smell the familiar pine smell as soon as she was within a few feet of him, it became stronger as he bent close to the desk she sat at to retrieve a book from his bag. She wondered if it was a cologne or soap he used. Whatever it was, she hoped he didn't stop using it.

Theo stared at Emory for a few moments and she studied his eyes closer. The green one was so deep she imagined it might appear brown from far away, and the blue one was almost grey, but she supposed that was because he was wearing a grey shirt. She wondered what would happen if he wore green or blue.

"Heterochromia," Theo said.

"Huh?" Emory replied, realizing she had been caught staring at his eyes for far too long to be considered normal.

"Heterochromia. That's what it's called when you have two different colored eyes like I do."

"Oh. It's really pretty."

"You think I'm pretty?" Theo asked, a smile playing on his lips.

"I--uh--" Emory stumbled, not sure how the conversation had turned to this. "I'm pretty sure I said your eyes were pretty," she paused for a moment. "Why are you here so early?"

"Nice subject change," Theo said. "I was actually hoping that I'd run into you before class if I showed up fifteen minutes early."

"You were? Why?" Emory asked, her heart rate increasing.

"Well, I needed to tell you that I can't make our study session tonight," Theo said. Emory felt her face fall, she had been looking forward to finding a study room with him again, while she didn't get a lot of homework done, it had been the best time away from her room so far.

"Oh, well if you don't want to meet at all, we don't have to, it was only a thought--"

"No! I really want to study together, if you want to, I mean," Theo reassured her. "I just have to go home for dinner tonight, because I normally have dinner once a week with my family on Fridays, but I'm planning on going to that party so I have to go tonight. And that's the other reason I wanted to talk to you before class," Theo said as the door to the lecture hall opened and two guys came in and sat near the front.

Emory was relieved that Theo still wanted to study, she wasn't ready to limit their interaction to class and chance encounters outside of it, she already missed him both Tuesday and Wednesday more than was probably healthy. Even now talking to him for the past five minutes had made her more energized than she was yesterday after a full night's sleep. After the two boys entered a steady stream of students came in and Theo never finished his sentence.